16
Sep
Like any person with an unhealthy addiction to self-deprecation, I’ve spent a lot of time cataloging my history of regrettable decision-making. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my teenage years were especially full of these: not asking a certain girl out on a proper date, only taking the SATs once, falling asleep during the one time I took the SATs, allowing friendships to end whilst being “busy” at college, etc. But here’s what makes me a maniac: despite all of the ridiculous mistakes I’ve made and since gotten over, I still cannot forgive myself for not seeing Shudder to Think live.
The opportunity to do so was there. Shudder to Think toured with (my then favorite band) Sunny Day Real Estate in ’94 in support of Pony Express Record but I avoided the tour when it stopped in Philadelphia. The band’s name made me uncomfortable. They sounded dangerous. Mosh-able. And probably worth skipping.
It wasn’t until I saw the video for “Hit Liquor” on 120 Minutes that I realized I was only slightly correct in my premature assessment and the subsequent purchase of Pony Express Record confirmed that this band was certainly worthy of concern. I had never heard anything quite like it. The songs were both horrifying (“Case of her bones was softer than loose meat”) and maddeningly compelling. Craig Wedren’s theatrical voice seemed a jarring contrast to the stuttering, wailing music behind it, a combination that made so little sense to me… it was like an opera written by a mad man. I worried what my growing obsession with the album said about my personality. It taught me that music was allowed to feel wrong. It was allowed to make me uneasy. It was allowed to creep me the hell out.
14 years later, the shock of Shudder to Think has certainly worn off. Along the way, however, they’ve become one of my all time favorite bands. Pony Express Record stands as a defining album of my musical history and one that will always be in contention for the never-to-be-truly-awarded title of Favorite Album Ever. It’s dark, raw, supremely creepy, and totally perfect. And, in a way, it makes me nostalgic for a time when record companies and MTV harbored music they believed in despite it’s commercial viability and didn’t, as a gut reflex, run screaming from bands with a genuine and creative approach to their craft. YouTube user thedesiresymposium‘s description of “Hit Liquor” sums up these feelings beautifully:
Dulling the guilt of nostalgia is easy when you pine for a time (in the recent past, no less) when a single this avant-garde could be released by a major label, accompanied by a music video equally as controversial. Pony Express-era Shudder To Think pushed the envelope in every conceivable direction.
This story has a happy ending, though: I just purchased my ticket to see Shudder to Think, reunited, in November. Here’s hoping they can still capture just a bit of the danger and uneasiness that made me both petrified and totally enamored of them. I can’t wait.
Update: Pitchfork just published a great interview with Craig Wedren regarding the upcoming reunion shows.
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I remember this show quite well from when it swung through Irving Plaza in NYC. The Dambuilders played too, but STT’s new music was unlike anything I had heard from them before. I was familiar with some previous work (Funeral at The Movies/Ten Spot) and I knew they were strange, but Pony Express was different. Sonic, jarring, operatic, challenging, melodic. One of the best bands to ever come out of Warshington DC. That SDRE played the same show was a brilliant bonus.
I think I still have the stub.